The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) of 2011 aims to ensure that the United States food supply is safe by shifting the focus from simply responding to food contamination to proactively preventing the contamination of food. As such, there is a need in the art for hygienically designed food processing equipment that produces microbiologically safe food by minimizing the risk of contamination. It is also desirable that the hygienically designed food processing equipment be easily cleaned and sanitized to further reduce the risk of contamination.
Standing water on horizontal surfaces in a food processing facility, such as food processing platforms and walkways, has been identified as one potential cause of food contamination. The pooled water provides a breeding ground for bacteria, such as listeria, which multiplies in wet conditions that lack sanitary measures. In addition, washing and sorting equipment that is not designed to allow for adequate cleaning and sanitizing can provide an additional breading ground for bacteria.
Horizontal structural support beams for walkways and platforms have been identified as one potential location of pooled water. In an effort to reduce the standing water on these support beams, prior art solutions have utilized standard square or rectangular tubular support beams rotated on a center axis to replace the horizontal surface of the support beam with an angled edge that is effective is shedding water from its surface. However, placing a standard tubular support beam at such an angle greatly reduces the load carrying capability of the support beam. Supporting the same load with a beam having a reduced load carrying capability requires an increased number of vertical support beams, having a shorter span distance between vertical supports, to adequately support the same load. The requirement of additional vertical support beams in food processing equipment is undesirable because the additional vertical support beams result in the processing equipment being more difficult to sanitize and increase the overall cost of the equipment.
According, what is needed in the art is an improved structural support beam for use in hygienically designed food processing equipment that eliminates undesirable horizontal surfaces and provides increased load-carrying capability.